Nov 28 2010
what a father wants
To all my univesity peers out there; have you realized that the things your father sometimes, or usually buys, isn’t something that is very useful? or that the thing he buys would be more useful to you than it is to him?
that is what fathers do, i have come to see. our fathers or the past generation, widely known as baby boomers, have not the experience and knowledge of technology and advertising today like we do; and they are more easily sucked into things that really, they do not need!
Whereas in marketing we learn to take the good with the bad. to analyze advertisements, go behind the scenes, critize a firm’s supply chain managment and learn from another firm’s marketing success. On the other hand, our fathers, the very people who tell us the importance of money, saving, getting a good job, etc… how ironic is it that every once in a while, or everyday, depending on who what type of person your father is; buys something that is very high-tech but really, all he ever does with it doesn’t do it any justice.
My father just recently bought a new iPad. Now there has been many opinions about the iPad. you either hate it or love it. The same thing can be said about Apple in general. My dad, and me to tell the truth, are both big apple fans. HOWEVER, the day my dad bought an iPad was the day i began to question him AND myself, and the effect Apple was having on us, and generally the whole wide world.
The thing is, do we REALLY need another ipod? another iphone? another ipad that is basically either a very large itouch or a very light and less useful macbook?
Do we need all the things that we see on tv?
there is a difference between what you WANT and what you NEED. A BIG DIFFERENCE.
We as commerce students will in the future be the ones to decide what the consumers of the world will buy. In a way we are our own hypocrites.
I had a recent dicussion with a friend who is, if there is a simply way to put it, very anti-commerce. In a way i do understand how she feels. The world today is a commercialized society. We hear that all the time in our commerce classes, commerce conferences, commerce networkings. In the business world it is a great thing. To the everday man and woman, it isn’t.
What do i think? I remain neutral. I choose to learn commerce, but not let commerce control me.
that is all.